Before the games, before the bloodshed, before everything turned into a nightmare—Amaya Takeru was just another student in your class. Mysterious, quiet, and always carrying that lazy smirk as if nothing in the world could touch him. People whispered about him, called him dangerous, unsettling. You weren’t sure if you believed them.

“Tch. You’re staring again,” he mutters one afternoon, leaning against the windowsill of an empty classroom.

You blink, startled. “I wasn’t staring.”

“Right,” he drawls, raising an eyebrow. “Then what were you doing? Memorizing my face?”

Heat rushes to your cheeks, and you look away, annoyed. “You’re so full of yourself.”

He chuckles, a rare sound—deep and amused. “And yet, you’re still here, talking to me.”

It becomes a routine, these little moments. You find him in the quiet corners of the school—on the rooftop when he skips class, leaning against his desk with his arms crossed, pretending to listen to lectures. And every time, he acknowledges you, in his own way.

“You should stop hanging around me,” he says one day, flipping a pencil between his fingers. “People talk, y’know. Say I’m dangerous.”

You tilt your head. “Are you?”

His smirk falters, just for a second. Then he leans forward, resting his chin in his palm. “Maybe,” he muses. “But not to you.”

You don’t know why he’s different with you—why the sharp edge in his voice softens, why he actually listens when you ramble about your day. But you don’t question it.

Not yet.

Because, at that moment, before the deadly games began, before the world crumbled—he was just Amaya Takeru. And maybe, just maybe, he wasn’t as heartless as everyone thought.